Description

Local Alaskans depend on the salmon in the Yukon river, not only for income but also for food for their families and animals. But the times of plenty seem to be over.

Transcript

Decrease of the Wild Salmon in the Yukon River Correspondent: Spring 1999 as the winter ice breaks in small villages along the banks of the Yukon River Delta in Alaska on the Edge of the Arctic Circle fishermen prepare for the annual Salmon Run when the fish go up the river to spawn. In a good year 200,000 salmon are caught in Alaska’s Yukon river, it’s the spawning ground of what is believed to be the largest population of wild Chinook Salmon in the world. Native Alaskans rely on the Salmon not only for income but for food for both people and their animals. Fresh Salmon is dried in the sun and stored for winter months but the times of plenty seem to be over and age old way of life maybe coming to an end. John Makie: At my time we have the Salmon’s were very big and fat. You know how it’s a very big round and large and some of them are really fighters. Hardly we see any of them right now some salmons are not even, they don’t even taste good to eat. Correspondent: Tom Kron manages the Yukon River area for the Alaska department of fisheries and game. Tom Kron (Department of Fisheries and Game, Alaska): Both the state and federal government last year declared that Chum and Chinook Salmon return on the Yukon River disaster and the Red Salmon return to vista bay a disaster. We’re talking 10 100 of millions dollars of impact from a commercial standpoint subsistence fisheries are you can’t quantify the value because it’s something that’s important to people’s cultures and lifesytel and family. Correspondent: The north pacific is one of the richest seas in the world and provides almost half of the fish and shellfish caught in the United States with Salmon accounting for 95% of ht esurface fish found in these waters . Scientists working for the Canadian department of fisheries and oceans have been monitoring the north pacific in an attempt to understand the causes of a declining salmon catch. They have found survival rates are down to as little as 1/10 of the levels of just a decade ago. It is feared that species such as the Sick eye salmon maybe drive to commercial extinction. David Welch is the senior scientist in the ocean salmon research project. He has suggested a link between falling salmon stocks and a sharp rise in sea temperature and consequent drop in surface food supply. David Welch (Department of Oceans and Fisheries, Canada): In the 1990s we’re looking at the ocean being much warmer and also much fresher it means there’s more freshwater coming from rain or from snow melt from glaciers and what’s that both of those things are doing is sealing of the surface of the ocean from the deep ocean. Deep ocean has lots of nutrients but no light. The surface has lots of light but little nutrients so as we lose the ability for the Oceans to pump nutrients up to where the plants are we’re seeing products of the ocean being reduced. Correspondent: The cold and nutrient rich waters of the North Pacific are particularly sensitive to rises in sea temperature. David Welch (Department of Oceans and Fisheries, Canada): They were very stable until the turn of the century and they’ve now increase by about .6 or .7 degree Celsius. It doesn’t sound like a lot but its’ a huge increase compared to anything seen in the last thousand years. What’s even more concerning to many of us is the projections are because of increase CO2 we’re looking at that much change to every decade continuously for the next hundred years because of increase green house gases. Correspondent: At the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, scientists had been studying the recent warming found in the North Pacific and Bering Sea. Gunter Weller (University of Alaska, Fairbanks): All the changes we see in the Bering Sea and in the arctic, very likely related to global climate change and to a men might influence on their climate by burning of fossil fuels. Correspondent: Warmer temperatures not only affect the sea life around Alaska. 1.2 Million hectares with Alaskan spruce pine forest are diseased. In some areas more than 90% of the trees are already dead. Forest entomologist Ed Holsten has been studying the devastation. He has found is the spruce beetle that’s the culprit. It’s a pest common in warmer southerly latitudes but until recently unknown here. Ed Holsten (US Forestry Service): These area here this tree was killed a couple of yeas ago by beetles. But by removing the bark we can see this gallery right here which is about 3 to 4 inches long there’s only one insect up here that makes that egg gallery like that and that’s as spruce beetle. Correspondent: No longer limited by temperatures the Spruce beetle now completes its life cycle 3 times faster than in cooler years. Ed: In the last 10 years we’ve lost more trees than we have in a previous 60 years. Factor it 10 times more and if you relate that tree mortality and you plot out temperature you could see in the last 10 years where we had a real significant increase in mean annual temperature that corresponded to this explosive epidemic or bark fields occurring in Alaska. We had not seen such a long length of favorable weather like this for 100 if not thousands of years.